Nomination form International Memory of the World Register

Transcription

1 Nomination form International Memory of the World Register 1.0 Checklist Nominees may find the following checklist useful before sending the nomination form to the International Memory of the World Secretariat. The information provided in italics on the form is there for guidance only and should be deleted once the sections have been completed. Summary completed (section 1) Nomination and contact details completed (section 2) Declaration of Authority signed and dated (section 2) If this is a joint nomination, section 2 appropriately modified, and all Declarations of Authority obtained Documentary heritage identified (sections ) History/provenance completed (section 3.4) Bibliography completed (section 3.5) Names, qualifications and contact details of up to three independent people or organizations recorded (section 3.6) Details of owner completed (section 4.1) Details of custodian if different from owner completed (section 4.2) Details of legal status completed (section 4.3) Details of accessibility completed (section 4.4) Details of copyright status completed (section 4.5) Evidence presented to support fulfilment of the criteria? (section 5) Additional information provided (section 6) Details of consultation with stakeholders completed (section 7) Assessment of risk completed (section 8) Summary of Preservation and Access Management Plan completed. If there is no formal Plan attach details about current and/or planned access, storage and custody arrangements (section 9) Any other information provided if applicable (section 10) Suitable reproduction quality photographs identified to illustrate the documentary heritage. (300dpi, jpg format, full-colour preferred). Copyright permissions forms signed and attached. Agreement to propose item(s) for inclusion on the World Digital Library if inscribed 1

2 Nomination form International Memory of the World Register Ignacio Ellacuría s Documentary Fond: Historical Reality and Liberation ID Code [ ] 1.0 Summary (max 200 words) Ignacio Ellacuría s Documentary Fond is a collection of documents inherited by the Society of Jesus from the personal belongings of Ignacio Ellacuría, a jesuit priest, former president of Central American University of El Salvador in the period Ignacio Ellacuría is Spanish born but naturalized as a Salvadoran. He arrived to El Salvador in 1949 and remained there until his death in He could have stayed in Spain or working in the best universities around the world, but he opted to stay in El Salvador, impacted by structural injustice and the repression of the military governments of the time, and extensive poverty and exclusion of the majority of the population. Ignacio Ellacuría is a nationally and internationally recognized intellectual, not only for his theoretical contributions to theology and philosophy of liberation regarding Latin American reality, but also for his role in the search for a negotiated solution to the internal armed conflict in El Salvador in the eighties. He was among the group of Jesuits who were killed in their academic center by the army in November 16, The Fond gathers handwritten documents, notes, lectures and class outlines, typed articles, newspaper cuttings, audio recordings of his classes and other personal documents. Almost all of his intellectual production can be found among this documents, both at philosophical and theological level as well as valuable socio-political analysis and critical interpretations of the Salvadoran and Central American reality, especially in the seventies and eighties. His legacy still continues inspiring the liberating mission of the university and is a standard reference of everyday social practice for many people, poor communities, social groups, scholars and intellectuals in El Salvador and other Latin American and European countries, like United States, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile Spain, Portugal and Germany. Ignacio Ellacuría and his Jesuit companions have become a knowledge, ethical and moral guide, and their ideals and goals of human society are an inspiration to the region and the world. Ignacio Ellacuría and his team were committed to conflict resolution of El Salvador and Central America and their scope places them with the personalities working for peace and social development in their countries, like Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mandela. The background documents are primary sources to rebuild the foundations of the liberating thought in Latin America and for critically understanding Salvadoran, Central American and Latin American historical reality in the last decades of the 20th century. They are original, unique and irreplaceable documents that have served as the basis for conducting multiple investigations in the field of social sciences and the humanities, not only in El Salvador, but in others countries of the world. 2

3 2.0 Nominator 2.1 Name of nominator (person or organization) Society of Jesus, Province of Central America 2.2 Relationship to the nominated documentary heritage Owner and Custodian 2.3 Contact person(s) (to provide information on nomination) Dr. Rolando Alvarado, S.J., Provincial. 2.4 Contact details Name Fr. Rolando Alvarado, S.J., Provincial Telephone (503) Address Compañía de Jesús, Provincia Centroamericana Curia Provincial: Ave. Río Lempa, 9-N. Colonia Jardines de Guadalupe. Apdo. Postal A-102. Antiguo Cuscatlán (La Libertad), El Salvador. Facsimile 3.0 Identity and description of the documentary heritage 3.1 Name and identification details of the items being nominated If inscribed, the exact title and institution(s) to appear on the certificate should be given Title: Ignacio Ellacuría s Documentary Fond: Historical Reality and Liberation Custodian: Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas, UCA, El Salvador. C.A. 3.4 History/provenance Since Ignacio Ellacuría was a member of the Society of Jesus, the Ignacio Ellacuría s Documentary Fond was inherited by the institution after his death, and has remained in the premises of the Library of Theology "Juan Ramón Moreno, S.J." in the Monsignor Romero Center, at Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas", UCA, in El Salvador. Before the intervention of archivist Rocío de los Reyes Ramírez, the documentation was housed in three metal filing cabinets. The organization that had the Fond was assigned by Ellacuría himself, this was his personal archive, and the documents were in less than optimal conditions for preservation and conservation purposes of historic documentation. Her intervention responds to the Project of Organization of the Personal File of Ignacio Ellacuría S.J., in year 2001, as a result of an agreement between the International University of Andalusía and the Ministry of Social Affairs of the Junta of Andalusia, in collaboration with UCA, especially through its Department of Philosophy, as it was stated before. The intervention began with the removal of the documents from hanging folders, due to the 3

4 negative impact that this situation had on the physical originals. All office materials such as clips, staples, rubber bands, among others, were then eliminated. Then it proceeded with the classification of the information, separating the documentation according to their support: documentary material and audio material. The latter enjoyed an optimal organization, which is why much archival work was not necessary. An effort was made to systematize and order the documentary, because after the assassination of Ignacio Ellacuría and his companions, UCA and Jesuits lived a constant strain, so an optimal treatment of the collection was not the priority. However, based on the procedure mentioned before, it was obtained the systematized Ignacio Ellacuría s Documentary Fond, including the description instruments necessary for consultation. The Fond contains all the documentation generated by Ignacio Ellacuría during his entire life in El Salvador. 4.0 Legal information 4.1 Owner of the documentary heritage (name and contact details) Name Fr. Rolando Alvarado, S.J., Provincial Society of Jesus, Central American Province Address Curia provincial Jesuitas: Ave. Río Lempa, 9-N. Colonia Jardines de Guadalupe. Apartado. Postal A-102. Antiguo Cuscatlán (La Libertad), El Salvador, Central America. Telephone (503) Facsimile socio@jesuitascam.org provincial@jesuitascam.org 4.2 Custodian of the documentary heritage (name and contact details if different from the owner) Name: Fr. Rafael de Sivatte Algueró, S.J. Theology Library Juan Ramón Moreno, Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas, UCA. Address Apartado Postal , Boulevard Los Próceres San Salvador, El Salvador, Centroamérica. Phone number: (503) Fax (503) rsivatte@uca.edu.sv 4.3 Legal status Ownership: Private Owner of the item of documentary heritage Fr. Rolando Alvarado, S.J., Provincial Society of Jesús, Central American Province Curia Provincial: Ave. Río Lempa, 9-N. Colonia Jardines de Guadalupe. Apdo. Postal A-102. Antiguo Cuscatlán (La Libertad), El Salvador 4

5 Custodian of the item of documentary heritage Fr. Rafael De Sivatte Algueró, S.J. Director Library Juan Ramón Moreno, S.J. Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas Apartado Postal , Boulevard Los Próceres San Salvador, El Salvador, Centroamérica. 4.4 Accessibility The Ignacio Ellacuría s Documentary Fond is property of the Society of Jesus and is open to the public in the Juan Ramón Moreno, S.J., Library at UCA. The Fond is in an appropriated place where researchers, scholars and users can consult the information in printed format, which is provided by the staff of the Library. The classification table and inventory can be found at the following link of the Department of Philosophy of UCA, This index is published in the book of Rocío de los Reyes Ramírez, cited in the bibliography, as well as in the annex No. 1 of this document. The Fond is fully digitalized, and it is available in the Internet through the Virtual Documentation Center Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J.: Copyright status The copyright belongs to the Society of Jesus. This is stipulated in the Act of surrender of goods that Ellacuría signed on January 29, 1966; subsequently took vows on February 02, These documents are stored in the file of the provincial curia, in Antiguo Cuscatlán, La Libertad, El Salvador. 5.0 Assessment against the selection criteria 5.1 Authenticity. Although seals, signatures or other signs that can prove the authenticity have not been identified in a systematic way in the documentation, the certainty lies in that the institutions involved, UCA and the Society of Jesus, directly inherited the documentary collection included in the personal belongings of Ignacio Ellacuría, who was a member of both institutions. The documentary fond has not left the campus and, has been guarded since its formation by staff of the Library of Theology "Juan Ramón Moreno, S.J.". In that sense, the path of the physical file guarantees that the documents guarded by this institution today, and gathered under the name of Ignacio Ellacuría s Documentary Fond, correspond to those generated by this personality in the exercise of his interaction in the different areas of his life in El Salvador. 5.2 World significance The intellectual production of Ignacio Ellacuría can be assessed in at least two ways: the related to Salvadoran and Central American historical reality and the theoretical, philosophical and theological production. At national and regional level, Ignacio Ellacuría was a personality of great importance to the El Salvador and Central America. From the institutional platform of UCA, he managed to position himself as an important analyst of national and regional reality. He was also a leading promoter of 5

6 a negotiated solution to the armed conflict, as mentioned before. As for the university, he was responsible and the adviser of the institutional development, creating various levels and units that expanded and improved the academic and scientific quality of UCA and its impact on the sociopolitical Salvadoran process. This words of Noam Chomsky on Ellacuría are eloquent in this regard: Closer to the explanation is your observation that they [Eastern European dissidents] were supported by the US and the Vatican, unlike dissidents elsewhere, who were supported by no one with any power or influence. But that is a great understatement: they [Eastern European dissidents] were given massive support and attention by the entire Western world, quite unprecedented support, vastly greater than the support given to people within Western domains who were suffering far worse oppression and were defending freedom and justice with far greater courage. The disparity is so extraordinary that the very word 'dissident' in Western languages refers to East Europeans; no one, except those few who have extricated themselves from the Western propaganda system, even uses the word 'dissident' for people like the Central American Jesuit intellectuals who were assassinated in November 1989 by elite forces armed and trained by the US. And while every word of East European dissidents is widely publicized, hailed, and treasured, try to find even a reference to the very important and courageous writings of Fr. Ellacuría and his associates, or other Central American dissidents who had to flee from slaughter or were simply tortured and killed by US-run forces. 1 At international level, Ellacuría is considered as an important Latin-American thinker, philosopher, and theologian of liberation. Since his death until now, multiple investigations on his thinking and on his pertinence for the present has been developed, using documents of his personal fund as a primary sources. His philosophical and theological writings establish theoretical foundations of both the philosophy and the theology of liberation in Latin America and its impact on other continents such as Africa and Asia. In this regard, the documents stored in his fond are exceptional, from which a large number of both national and international publications have been produced, thus highlighting the global impact of his intellectual production. 5.3 Comparative criteria: Does the heritage meet any of the following tests? (It must meet at least one of them.) 1 Time The documentation generated by Ignacio Ellacuría dates from , and reflects the social and political crises that occurred during that period in El Salvador and Central America. 1 Noam Chomsky (1996), Noam Chomsky - Stefan Kubiak. correspondence. 6

7 The perspective and their approach represents a unique manner of accounting the social and political events and their significance in Salvadoran history. Furthermore, the documentation criticized not only the current situation, but also proposed solutions to gradually overcome the historical crisis of El Salvador and Central America. In this sense, it can be said that the documents represent a new perspective and an original way of seeing the historical reality of the region and Latin America, and to propose new ways to transform it into a humanizing and liberating direction, not only for a few but for everyone. 2 Place The Fond contains reliable information of social, military, political and cultural events in El Salvador in the last decades of the last century, and is a prime source of information and an ethic-political assessment of the major social and political events that occurred at that time. The role of the military, electoral frauds, murder of catholic priests, emergence and development of popular mass organizations, actions of guerrilla organizations, massive and systematic violation of human rights by the military regime, actions of death squads, the critical role of the Catholic Church under the leadership of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the role of the government of the United States in the armed conflict, civilians massacre, such as the one in El Mozote, are, among other relevant facts, described and critically analyzed in the different written documentation contained in the fond. 3 People In the decades of the 70s and 80s of the XX century, El Salvador experienced one of the most troubled periods in its history. The political and economic conditions in which the majority of the population lived, the generalized repression and electoral frauds by the ruling military regime generated a deep discontent within civil society, which was concretized in the emergence of popular and political-military organizations that considered the taking of power by force of arms. This atmosphere of social unrest and exacerbated politics characterizes the 70s and leads to a civil war that lasted approximately 12 years ( ). It is precisely during the armed conflict that Ignacio Ellacuría performs as Rector of the University, a position he held until his assassination in From that platform, Ellacuría managed to permeate a special mystique in the university and projected it as a civil society organization with public voice and presence on the national scene. During the armed conflict, even before, the UCA led by Ellacuría was characterized by making rigorous analysis of the socio-political process in El Salvador and by generating criticism of the prevailing militarism, its repression and the situation that kept most of the population in poverty and exclusion. In that sense, the massive attendance of journalists to his periodic lecture on National Reality, organized in the university, his role as mediator in the release of the kidnapped daughter of former President Duarte 2, in 1985, the social and political impact generated by his writings and public interventions, and his tenacious commitment in achieving a negotiated solution to the armed conflict lead him to being subject of insults, defamation and death threats by right-wing groups, death squads and high officers of the armed forces. He went into exile in 1977 and On September 10, 1985 a FMLN unit kidnapped Inés Guadalupe Duarte Durán, daughter of José Napoleón Duarte, President of El Salvador ( ). By intermediation of the Archbishop of San Salvador, Arturo Rivera y Damas, and Fr. Ellacuría the release was achieved on October 24 of that year, with the release of 24 mayors, also kidnapped by the FMLN. This in turn, secured the release of 25 political prisoners and safe conduct out of the country for 101 FMLN war disabled. 7

8 The documents of the Documentary Fond reflects in an original form those great events that occurred at a time of high conflict and social change in El Salvador, analyzed with great intellectual acuteness and ethical commitment by Ignacio Ellacuría. In his political writings, Ellacuría proceeded to a critical analysis of economic policies, social structures, the State, rights, constitutional framework, armed forces, electoral processes, political ideologies, and the armed conflict. It was an exercise of critique of ideologies, which called into question the many ideological elements that influenced the configuration of the Salvadoran reality at the time. But while performing this critical task, Ellacuría was always attentive to discover possibilities for the solution to the main problems and open new avenues to advance the Salvadoran process, a difficult balance between the utopia of the liberation of the majority and that what was possible at every stage of the process. For example, his thesis on the third force" in 1986 was very relevant and much discussed by the warring parties in the Salvadoran conflict. Ellacuría argued that although both sides had restructured and strengthened themselves in order to achieve their political and military objectives, none of them had achieved to weaken the other, on the contrary, they had improved themselves. If this was so, according to Ellacuría, it was necessary to do something qualitatively new that was not in line with a strengthening of the warring parties. His proposal was based in the fact that most of the population and a group of major social forces wanted a different solution to war. Why not take advantage of the power of society to force a war ends, to define provisional measures until it is finished and to find basic agreement points to start addressing the structural causes that originated the conflict? Ellacuría was not proposing a third political party that entered the contest, much less a third way, the other way around, he was appealing to the strength of civil society, trade unions, NGOs, churches, small and medium-sized business and other popular organizations, in order to, that through a negotiation process, this force of society exert pressure to end the armed conflict, defending the interests of the popular majority and democratize the country. Ignacio Ellacuría organized in his later years large segments of Salvadoran society in order to mobilize them towards peace and tried to build bridges to finish a bogged down war producer not only of an unnecessary violence but also of poverty and social exclusion, which ironically was what insurgents leaders wanted to eradicate in the then current civil war. Subsequently, between 1990 and 1991, when both warring parties began to realize not only the military parity, but also the overwhelming pressure of Salvadoran people towards peace and need for a negotiated settlement, Ellacuría s thesis over the third force started to gain reality and showed the rationality of his proposal, which at the time he presented it was not adequately valued by the contending forces. At the end, time proved him right. The peace agreement, signed in January 1992, ended the Salvadoran conflict. 4 Subject and theme 8

9 Political, philosophical and theological documents contained in the Ellacuría s Documentary Fond, are of great theoretical value and represent advances in the field of theology, philosophy and social sciences. Ellacuría helped build a theology based on the historical present of the country and the continent in which lived. It was thinking "in the theologian way" on a historical drama. It was supposed that incorporate their faith lived and lived their faith. This may now seem somewhat trivial, at least by the fact of having heard some many times, but it was not easy to say it at the end of the 1960s in Latin America. To which defended it, accused you of "Marxist", "Communist", which gave rise to the famous phrase of the Brazilian Cardinal Helder Camara: "when I give bread to the poor, say that I am a Saint; When I ask myself why the poor has no bread, they say that I am a Communist". What actually pretended to Ellacuría, like others of his generation, was not spread to the Christian theology of Marxism, but to build what he called a "Historical Theology". By "Historical Theology" Ellacuría understood a way of doing theology: reflecting about one's faith from the historical present, and reflect on the historical present from faith. He used to say that all theology - as also all human knowledge in general, whether or not they are aware of it, is conditioned by its historical present, and this has been so since the origin of Christianity- and this has happened also in human knowledge, since the origin of the human being-. Historical Theology wants reflects awareness of its historical matrix, and fully assume: the subject of this theology looks from where is thinking, what are the voices that listens and tries to give sincere response. In this theology, locus theologicus (the "theological place") acquires great importance: from where he or she reflects, for who he or she reflects. Ellacuría and the theologians of his generation wanted to do from the oppressed majorities of Latin America and, in general, of the third world. And when they realized that in this life could be them, not they stopped, they followed along, some - like Ellacuría-to finally give his life. As for his philosophical contribution, Ellacuría thought the historical reality as the domain par excellence of liberation 3. Ellacuría felt an immense passion for history that encompasses the totality of reality (that s why he used the term historical reality to define the object of philosophy). But he did not look just for the historical data, to mere conventional historiography, to simply describe past events. Ellacuría sought to influence it, to intervene in the historical reality that, from his philosophical conception, is a unitary, open and dynamic reality that has nodes and networks on which we must act to change it from its structural hinges. 4 The starting point of the Ellacurian philosophical analysis was the negativity that occurs in historical reality, from which to wonder about possible solutions that will enable to overcoming it historically through theoretical and practical processes of emancipation, which would be configured as overtaking process of the negation or negation of the negation, in a dialectical sense. Against abstract and ideologized proclamations of the common good, a general good, Ellacuría maintained that what actually occurs is the common evil. 5 The common evil is the 3 Cf. I. Ellacuría, Filosofía de la realidad histórica, UCA Editores, San Salvador, Cf. I. Ellacuría, Curso de Ética, en Cursos universitarios, UCA Editores, San Salvador, 2009, pp. 265ss. 5 Cf. I. Ellacuría, El mal común y los derechos humanos, en Escritos filosóficos, t.3, UCA Editores, San Salvador, 2001, p

10 real state of the world where most people are structurally wrong for the same living conditions order of such world. It originates from unjust structures that hamper human life and, therefore, dehumanize most of those who live under them, and is translated onto an institutionalized injustice in laws, customs, ideologies and the rest of social life dimensions. Against common evil, so defined, arises the common good as a denying requirement to that structural and institutional injustice. This leads Ellacuría to consider that the basic requirements contained in the human rights program are, in fact, a need to enable the historic renovation of the common good. In the situation determined by the common evil and the tension that it causes with the desired common good is based, for Ellacuría, the need to claim human rights as a specific demand to the need to achieve or attain the common good historically. Human rights from the perspective of a dominant common evil, shows them as a particular common good, to be sought in the ambitious denial of the common evil, which is a situation where human rights are permanent and massively violated. 6 Violation of human rights occurring in the current civilization of capital, as a result of the breaking of solidarity of mankind, leading to the absolutism of the individual, social class, nation or economic bloc, above all others and of humanity itself. 7 In this context, liberalism is the ideology that legitimizes and justifies this situation and gives legal and formal coverage to the freedoms of the rich and privileged elites who seek to, in turn, that others do not get respect from them, "by successive and complex processes of liberation ". 8 In the field of social sciences, Ellacuría contributions are also relevant to emphasize the need to analyze social facts in their historical context and consider them as moments of a sociohistorical totality from which they acquire their true meaning. Also notes the importance of the place from where society and history science must be done. In the context of a divided and conflictive society, the right place from which it is possible to achieve more objectivity, it is the place of the victims of social and economic systems. Ellacuría was also one of the first intellectuals to point out, over 40 years ago, the trend of globalizing social and economic processes that were occurring worldwide. 5 Form and style The predominant style of Ellacuría s documents is prose, carried in paper. They are characterized by texts written systematically, clearly and directly. Approach the problems and develop arguments in a logical and consistent way until give account of their solution, which is expressed in the conclusions. Most documents are drafted either by hand or old typewriters. In other words, it is about a support or format practically currently disappeared. Hence the importance of preserving it. 6 Social/ spiritual/ community significance: The Ignacio Ellacuría s Documentary Fond contains the intellectual production from who faced the crises of their time in a committed way, both an intellectually and ethically level. His legacy still continues inspiring the liberating mission of the University and other Jesuit universities, and is a standard reference of everyday social practice of many people and social groups in El 6 Cf. J. A. Senent de Frutos, Ellacuría y los derechos humanos, Desclée de Brouwer, Bilbao, Cf. I. Ellacuría, Subdesarrollo y derechos humanos, Revista Latinoamericana de Teología, no. 25, I. Ellacuría, Utopía y profetismo desde América Latina, Revista Latinoamericana de Teología, no. 17, 1989, p

11 Salvador and other Latin American countries. Ignacio Ellacuría and his assassinated jesuit companions have become a guide in the field of knowledge, ethics and morals, and his ideals and goals of human society are an inspiration to the country and the world. His personal projects, missionary commitments, individual career, knowledge and experience were articulated in a strategy against inequality of Salvadoran society, seeking human beings promotion and their liberation, the transforming reality knowledge, national reconciliation and the revolutionary cause of peace. His work on behalf people in different field of social life is what makes him last in time. For this important reason, the documents are valued by the academic community and many people from poor Latin American communities as something very important, which is necessary to preserve and make known to the rest of the world. At almost 26 years of his murder, intellectuals, academics and people in christian communities of many countries thinks the work and the life of Ellacuría, his moral and intellectual legacy, enshrined in his documentary fond, should be continued today, in the light of the new realities and new situations that have been configured in this second decade of the 21st century in El Salvador and in Central America and the rest of the world. 6.0 Contextual information 6.1 Rarity The documents contained in the Fond are unique; they were generated by the activity of Ignacio Ellacuría. His personal papers, manuscripts, notes from books, notes and recordings of lectures and classes are original and irreplaceable documents. They are primary sources for the study of his thinking and its application to the serious problems we are facing nowadays worldwide. Therefore, its deterioration or disappearance would damage seriously not only the documentary heritage of El Salvador but also Latin America and the world. 6.2 Integrity All documentation produced by Ignacio Ellacuría is located in the documentary fond of the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA), and is not distributed, shared or localized in another institution. The documentation is kept in antacid file boxes, and since the intervention of 2001, the organization itself has not been modified. There is some information generated throughout his activity as a member of the Society of Jesus and Rector of UCA, but is not the subject of this proposal. This information is available in the Provincial Curia files and the files of the Board of Directors of the Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas", UCA. 11